There has been much on this forum about this. I think I would say that the answer is 'no'. Triple science consists at present of 3 x papers in each of Physics, Biology and Chemistry- core, additional and further additional (P1, P2, P3 etc). Dual award science does only the first and second modules for each of the three sciences. Many parents seem to get hot under the collar about the merits of doing all 3, and I must confess here that my DD has done all 3 and we are pleased about that; but one of my closest friends is head of science at a GS and she says it makes no difference at all to A level results nor indeed to the ability of students to cope at A level with hard science. Her own DC did dual award and is predicted A* at A level in Chemistry and Physics.

Others will tell you it is vital. I think categorically for university entrance, it makes no difference at all, though an A* in both awards is anecdotally considered to be seen as equivalant to getting A in all 3 of the single subjects.

There is a big step up from triple science to AS sciences, so the gap is bigger for those with double science. CGP do a series of books to bridge the gap for both double and triple candidates, the Head Start to AS Biology, etc.

My daughters' grammar school offers both dual and triple science at GCSE. They only do 9 GCSEs in total, so offering dual gives girls who aren't going to go the science route the chance of a broader subject range plus the back-up option of science at A level if they change their mind.

The school prefers, though, that girls wanting to take A Level having done dual science at GCSE, only take one science A Level due to the extra work required to get them to the required standard. I specifically asked the question at the Y9 Options Evening about grades and was told that A Level grades for the dual science girls were generally not as high as for the triples.

I think there is some element of horses for courses, though. I would observe that, in very general terms, the brighter girls tend to take triple science and the slightly less bright girls generally take dual along with the genuinely arty types who don't want to do science at all at A Level. I can see that that model lends itself to the dual girls finding A Level (and an A*) a more tricky prospect than the triple girls.

The school runs a course in the summer term for each of the sciences to enable dual girls to catch up. I They are given the missing material together with a suggested programme of work and they then go away and work diligently over the summer holidays ready for the autumn term.

My conclusion is that it depends on the child. A bright, motivated, dual student can do as well as a tripler, but it's not a given. In a school where number of GCSEs taken is limited, I think the dual option can be a good thing for a non-sciency pupil. However, my preference would be triple and 1 more GCSE option to keep as many doors open as possible.

My older children's grammar only offered the dual award, and both my son and daughter really really struggled with A Level Biology and my daughter with A Level Chemistry as well.In my view it was a distinct failure of the school to properly prepare them for the A Levels. They both had good As in their GCSEs, so it wasn't that they didn't have the ability.Interestingly my youngest at the comprehensive will be taking the triple award, and I am very pleased about that as he has designs above his station sometimes and wants to be a doctor ( or maybe a hospital porter, he hasn't quite made up his mind )

My son's (soon to be sons') GS has recently switched to doing iGCSEs in Science, as they decided that none of the current syllabuses (syllabi?), dual or triple, prepared students adequately for A level.

The Head of Science in my school would disagree with Amber. They find that external students joining the Sixth Form with double Science are way behind.

Same here. At DS1's school we have been told that external students with double science find A level sciences much harder than those who have done 3 separate sciences because they haven't done any of the subjects in as much depth. It is already a huge jump from GCSE to A level and for many with double science it is a leap too far.

I'm sure that there is some merit in this argument; but for the sake of anyone's sanity who might be reading this 'leap too far' doom-mongering with sinking heart, I would just like to mention that module 3 of each of the sciences (ie the bit which makes the difference between 'double' and 'triple') is covered in around a term or a bit more at the tail end of year 11. DD's opinion is that there is less material in module 3 than module 2. So even if one felt one's child had been placed at enormous disadvantage, it is not as though there is a vast mass of uncovered material to assimilate before sixth form for any serious scientists who because of their school policy have taken dual award.

I am sure there has been an almost identical thread to this before anyway,

I have some practical observations:

Some schools only offer double science but still seem to get good a level results and kids doing medicine and going to Russel group uni's to study sciences engineering etc

I have a friend that is head of science in a school in nottingham and she has a mixed input of internal and external 6 formers and has done a study of any correlation between a level results and double and triple science at gcse which showed it was correlated much more to the average grade in your science gcse's than whether u did triple or double ie students with AA gcse's got similar a level results to students with AAA gcse's

If a school offers both double and triple sciences it is likely to get it's better science students to study triple sciences, so for the same school to then say that the kids doing double science get worse A level results is more likely to be due to them being worse at science !!

I'm not sure that whether u have done double or triple science is the issue but much more whether u are naturally gifted and interested and enthusiastic.

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